MTA Absurdity

During E-ZPass-gate three weeks ago, shortly before seeing their free perks disappear, the ever-generous MTA Board vowed to fight to the death for their E-ZPasses and the various sundry perks these men and women, some of the richest in the city, enjoy.

Well, it’s good to see that the Board is staying true to its word, for once. They won’t give us our promised service upgrades, but they will battle tooth and nail for some free rides. Now, while I’d usually just post this story as an aside, a few choice quotes were too good to ignore.

In The Times today, William Neuman reports that the MTA Board is divided over the perks issue. The responsible board members want to eliminate the perks; the usually self-important folks want to keep them around. The pro-perks faction is led by David S. Mack, a very rich man, and the MTA’s Vice Chair and chair of a few Long Island-focused committees.

And what did Mr. Mack have to say? Take a look:

Mr. Mack said that it was important for board members to be familiar with the transportation system they oversaw and that free travel passes encouraged that. In their trips through the system, board members frequently notice problems that can be corrected swiftly with a phone call, he said.

“We’re invaluable,” Mr. Mack said…“If you saw something and called it in, it goes right there,” he added, as he put his foot on top of a wastebasket. “When the normal public calls it in, you know what happens with the bureaucracy, they don’t get the response that a board member would get.”

Now, that sounds positively altruistic from Mack. He rides the trains! He sees something, says something and results happen. You would think, then, that Mr. Mack is a regular rider on his trains. Not quite, reports Neuman:

But Mr. Mack, a Long Island resident who says he typically rides the railroad 5 to 10 times a year, said that if he had to pay, he might change his habits.

“Why should I ride and inconvenience myself when I can ride in a car?” he said.

No, you’re not reading this incorrectly. David S. Mack, a man so rich that he has a sports complex at Hofstra with his name on it, is complaining about having to pay to ride the rails five to ten times a year. A YEAR! I ride the subways ten times in a normal four-day period. Cry me a river, David.

With a few anonymous board members noting that no one on the board actually needs those free passes, I have to wonder just how indicative Mack is of the general state of the MTA Board. I know that Dale Hemmerdinger and Elliot Sander know what they’re doing, but does anyone else? Or is the Board populated with people as out of touch with the transportation network and the riding habits of the people who rely on it day in and day out as Mack is? No wonder the MTA is a huge a financial bind right now.

Update 12:10 p.m.: Eric Gioia — yes, that Eric Gioia — has released a statement about this debacle:

“Vice Chairman Mack should either clarify his statement or resign. With sentiment like that it is no wonder that the MTA is in such dire straits. His comments represent an absolute disdain for the very entity which serves millions of hardworking New Yorker every day who don’t have a choice to just ‘take their car.’ This sense of entitlement and contemptuous thinking is what leads New Yorkers to rightly ask who is on their side at MTA headquarters.”

Gioia is spot-on right in this matter. At least someone is trying to hold this MTA Board accountable.

While the MTA is crying poverty and threatening fare hikes and service cutbacks, the Authority is also doling out raises to its executives. According to a report in the Daily News, MTA Chairman Dale Hemmerdinger has authorized what Pete Donohue termed “a $10,000 boost” to CEO Elliot “Lee” Sander’s compensation package.

Hemmerdinger attempting to defend the move, noting that Sander’s $340,000 annual salary is low. “I approved a 3% increase for the executive director/CEO, equal to increases earned by the management that reports to him. Lee is still paid less than the heads of smaller transit agencies in Washington and Los Angeles, and far less than what he would earn in the private sector,” he said in a statement.

The reality of the situation is that $10,000 isn’t going to make or break an agency looking at annual deficits of hundreds of millions of dollars, and Sander has done an excellent job looking to the MTA’s future while negotiating the tough financial constraints of the present. But at a time when the authority is practically begging for a money, a high-profile raise no matter how small isn’t the right message to send to the fare-paying public or the legislatures holding the purse strings.

This one comes off a tip from Chris. Perhaps running spellcheck on those Website blurbs would be a good idea. Or maybe the MTA just want you to use your Saturday and Sunday to have that extra bit of controlled-substance fun.

If you’re looking for the weekend service advisories, you can find them in this post.

All’s well that ends well for E-ZPassgate. This afternoon, the MTA issued a statement about the long-standing practice of issuing free ride perks to their board members. Said the statement:

In light of Attorney General Cuomo’s opinion, the MTA will amend its longstanding practice of issuing free passes on the agency’s transit network to its current and former board members.

Subject to approval of its Board, the MTA would rescind its policy of issuing free lifetime passes on its operating systems to former board members. Hereafter, pursuant to the MTA’s enabling legislation, active board members may only utilize passes on the transit network to the extent that such use constitutes actual and necessary expenses incurred in the performance of their official MTA duties.

I guess the MTA wasn’t so willing to fight to the death for the right to E-ZPass. Now we can go back to worrying about important issues like bedbugs in the subways.

It’s Day Three of E-ZPassgate. Let’s recap.

On Tuesday, the Daily News reported on the free E-ZPasses for life that MTA board members, current and former, received in exchange for their public service. On Wednesday, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo ordered the MTA to stop, and the MTA magnanimously complied.

Just kidding. The MTA vowed to take the issue to court, and now a state authority and the state’s top lawyer at an impasse.

As details about this ridiculous story have emerged, we’ve developed a clearer picture of the MTA perks. For instance, as William Neuman reports in The Times today, the free E-ZPass rides are valid only on MTA-controlled tolls. The board members have to pay Port Authority tolls out-of-pocket.

Meanwhile, the Daily News noted that public transit perks are included as well. MTA board members receive free lifetime passes for themselves+1 on Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road and free lifetime MetroCards too. Wouldn’t you want to get your hands on a free unlimited ride MetroCard valid forever?

So all this drama got me thinking: What are some of the other unreported MTA perks? One can only wonder…

Free rush hour crowds for life — If any MTA board members want to experience the joys of a crowded commute, they can use their free MetroCards to ride the subways during rush hour. It’s the experience of getting shoved around a packed subway car, and it’s free!

Free Sauna (Summer Only) — If any board members are feeling the strains of a busy day riding around the MTA bridges and tunnels for free, they could always duck into the subways during the summer for a nice sit in the sauna-like conditions underground. It’s a great way to sweat off a few pounds.

Free Waits – This one’s fairly self-explanatory.

So there you have it. Along with all the free stuff the MTA Board members — some of the most successful real estate barons in New York — receive come some great ancillary perks. The rest of us pay $2 (or less) per swipe for this benefits, but these folks can get them for free. I hope they consider that as they fight tooth and nail for the free E-ZPass benefits.

When I posted on the MTA Board’s free E-ZPass perk yesterday, a few outraged commenters expressed their disbelief at this overwhelming generosity of a public transportation agency encouraging road use by its current and former board members. Second Ave. Sagas readers aren’t the only ones unhappy by the news; New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo wasn’t pleased by the Daily News report, and he wants the MTA to rescind the free E-ZPasses.

Pete Donohue has the follow-up:

State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo moved swiftly Tuesday to end the E-Z life for MTA board members, warning the authority to revoke the free travel perks. Just hours after the Daily News revealed how some 60 past and present board members – many of them multimillionaires – get the free tags for life, Cuomo’s office issued a stern warning that the practice is illegal.

Cuomo also told the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to produce records of any other benefits doled out to board members who are supposed to “serve without salary or other compensation.”

The letter to the MTA, penned by top Cuomo aide Benjamin Lawsky, was titled “Illegal Compensation of Board Members.”

While the MTA has yet to respond to Cuomo’s missive, Straphangers Campaign head Gene Russianoff had some strong words for the agency. “If participation on the MTA board is uncompensated and motivated by public service, then it should be uncompensated,” he said. “If the MTA wants to say thank you, maybe they should give flowers and some chocolates to board members, not an E-ZPass worth many thousands of dollars.”

Hear, hear.

Over the past twenty years, New Yorkers have seen their subway fares increase by 100 percent from a base fare of $1.00 in 1988 to the $2.00 we pay today. Meanwhile, fines for breaking the subway rules have stagnated, and a perp caught jumping the turnstile today pays the same $60 today as he or she would have doled out in 1988. Now, considering law-abiding passengers are getting held up for more money, those fines just don’t seem, well, fair.

At least, that’s what New York City Transit thinks, and the agency is trying to increase fines levied on everything from subway vandalism to fare-jumpers and weapons charges. Brooke Naylor and Pete Donohue had more in the Daily News:

Fines for all bus and subway rule violations will likely go up, some doubling to $200, the Daily News has learned. Smoking, littering, vandalism, taking up two seats – you name it – NYC Transit wants the fines to go up since they haven’t risen in two decades.

NYC Transit President Howard Roberts on Thursday said he wants a stiffer penalty for fare-beating to serve as a deterrent. One source said fare-beating fines – now $60 – likely will be upped to roughly $100.

Sources said the authority is drafting higher penalties for all 45 types or categories of violations. Roberts said he’d like to double the maximum penalty of $100 now applied to four offenses: vandalism/obstructing train or bus traffic, committing “harmful acts,” carrying weapons and carrying explosives.

According to Naylor and Donohue, the MTA board will have to approve the higher fines, and some may require legislative action as well. It’s hard to see anyone voting against higher fines for quality-of-life violations in the subway.

While the MTA is doing all it can to draw in more revenue from the limited options available to it, this move seems to me like a no-brainer. And I can only wonder why it’s taken the transportation authority twenty years to act on this issue. After all, $60 in the 1988 is now worth nearly $109. We’re letting fare-jumpers off cheap these days.

Recycled MetroCard artwork photo by flickr user dM.nyc.

Peter Kalikow may be, thankfully, gone from his post atop the MTA Board, but he’s still irking subway watchers in New York City.

According to a report in today’s Daily News, Kalikow is just one of many current and former MTA board members enjoying free E-ZPass tags for life at the expense of New York City taxpayers. But Kalikow’s case is extra special: He gets tags for eight of his 40 cars so he doesn’t have to switch out tags based on whatever it is the former public transit official is driving.

Pete Donohue reports:

The former chairman isn’t the only member of the MTA millionaires club who takes advantage of the freebie. As of early May, 21 board members held 33 tags, and MTA records show 37 former board members have 62 passes.

Board Vice Chairman David Mack, a real estate magnate, has six of the special E-ZPass tags, which are orange, not white, like those on windshields of paying customers.

Fellow board Vice Chairman Andrew Saul, director of a national chain of apparel stores, has four tags, according to records provided by the MTA under the Freedom of Information Act. Mack has 11 cars, his assistant said. Saul, as is his custom, didn’t return a reporter’s telephone call.

“When riders learn about these free all-you-can-drive passes, they become very skeptical about an MTA board that decides the cost of a MetroCard or how much subway service they get,” said Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign.

Of course, the MTA board members see nothing wrong with the perks. “Everybody on the board serves for nothing,” Kalikow said. “They do a lot of hard work and it’s a way of saying thank you.”

That’s quite the thank you note.

Now, I can understand giving perks to those people who have served the city in a public transportation capacity. Free MetroCards for life would encourage mass transit use. A singular E-ZPass per board member would seem reasonable if less desirable for the anti-car contingency.

But at a time when the MTA is searching for cash and the agency stands to benefit more from having fewer cars on the road, rewarding multi-millionaires with free E-ZPasses for life for more than one car per person seems a bit excessive to me.